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Suga’ in My Bowl currently airs alternating Sunday nights from 11 PM – 1 AM Eastern Standard Time on WBAI radio, 99.5 FM in New York City and can be heard throughout the tri-state area or by live internet stream. We are sometimes pre-empted for quarterly fund drives, since WBAI is listener-supported community radio. If you check the box on the home page, you can sign up for new posts by e-mail and get notifications of upcoming shows that way. (We don’t harvest or sell your e-mail address.) Shows are archived on WBAI‘s server for 2 weeks after the initial air date and for an unlimited period of time in our own audio archives, which you can stream from the archives page. We plan to have full audio archives right here on the site and post new shows after they air on WBAI. Right now, we have shows going back to 2009, which is most of the shows that have been aired. There are a few older shows still missing and we’re hoping to get them up eventually.

Suga‘ evolved from September 5, 2004, when Soul Central Station host Tony Ryan allowed Suga’ executive producer and host Joyce Jones to present a special on producer/arranger/composer Charles Stepney during the his time slot (thanks, Tony!). In 2007, Joyce was granted a more regular monthly slot under the title of “Suga’ In My Bowl” (a name that was suggested by a friend named Andrew), where it’s been an honor to feature artists such as Pat Metheny, Dianne Reeves, Diane Schuur, Lou Donaldson, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef and many others.

The show now focuses on original long format interviews with jazz (and jazz-inspired) musicians mixed with music. We’re one of the few shows (in any format) that gives people chance to really talk in-depth about their music, life, and what’s on their mind. While musicians are the primary focus, we occasionally take a broader view and talk to producers and other cultural workers who’ve had a significant impact on the world of music or whose work is music-inspired. Good examples of this were interviews with journalist and author Ashley Kahn, poet/ activist/ jazz critic Amiri Baraka, and poet/ activist/ educators Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, and Jessica Care Moore, among many others.

As of this writing, most interviews are pre-recorded, though in the past when the show had an earlier time slot, some interviews were live and a few guests even took listener calls. We’d like to get back to that in the future, but the current time slot makes it impractical for a lot of guests. Suga’ has also gone “on the road” to record the occasional interview (we have a couple of good stories from our trip to Philly to talk to Marshall Allen: eventually that’ll be aired) and has tentatively stepped into video as well, via associate producer Kazembe Balagun, who has taped select interviews. We’ve yet to figure out what to do with the video. It’ll likely eventually wind up on the site, but there are a few things to work out before that happens.

For now, we’ve got a stable time slot and are looking ahead to talking with a lot of great people. Keep listening, tell friends and family, and keep supporting us and the music!